PostScript: Parker and what race is Santa anyway

Christmas came early this year for those who comment on cultural commentators, as well as for those who comment upon those who comment on cultural commentators. Aisha Harris wrote in Slate that the dominant cultural image of Santa Claus, the jolly old round-bellied-white-bearded-rosy-cheeked guy who wears some kind of red fur or fur-like suit and whatever that hat is about with the pompom, who hangs out with reindeer, one of whom is radioactive, and who is just nuts for Coca-Cola, milk and cookies … Anyway, that guy made Harris feel bad as a child that her family’s brown-skinned Santa “wasn’t the ‘real thing.’ ” Megyn Kelly, Fox News host, took the opportunity to say that Santa is a historical figure and you can’t just makes things up about him. Therefore he is white, okay, and we need to stop lying about Santa.

But nobody has yet pointed out that Harris’s solution — a penguin Santa (though penguins come in different colors too!) — is unworkable because there is already a Christmas penguin. So PostScript has.

Parker and all of the commenters upon her column, like the world at large, failed to match Kelly’s sense of humor and insisted on making Kelly’s comments about race. But we also collectively revealed that “white” doesn’t have much of a standard definition, anyway.

You mean they are Caucasian? They certainly aren’t “white”. They are olive – as you said.

cashman7323

The current definition [of white] used by the US Census Bureau is European, Middle Eastern, and North African.

TheDoodeAbides

Have you ever been to the Middle East? No white people now – no white people then.

cashman7323

Turks are white.

zeke27

White is a political color, a frame of mind just as black is. Megyn thinks she’s white, and she assumes all the benefits that being in the political white majority confers. The legend of St. Nick has nothing to do with the merchants in the 1890’s getting together to co-opt Santa Claus and create our current mercantile season of consumption.

RLDRY

Who cares? The Santa mythology is based on European saints so obviously it is based on a white person.

TheDoodeAbides

Our “image” of Santa is really the result of Coca Cola’s marketing art. Look it up, then get off your racist sled and have a holiday beverage.

Checkered Post

Coca Cola is another White institution.

This caused PostScript to Google “white soda,” which brought up this image of carbonated milk, the idea of which is so frankly disgusting PostScript hopes it turns out to be another one of Megyn Kelly’s jokes.

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